Keep calm
by esama
Summary: Twenty things John does to rebuild his life after Sherlock's fall. AU, Oneshot, Spoilers for Reichenbach Fall.


Warnings: Spoilers from Reichenbach Fall. AU Oneshot

**Keep calm**

The first thing John does, that makes a difference, is moving out Baker Street. It involves a surprisingly little work, only trying to separate his things from Sherlock's things and then untangle all of that from whatever belongs to Mrs Hudson. He's shocked, in the end, by how little he has. Because that chair had become _his chair_, that cushion on the couch _his_ cushion, that mug _his_ tea mug. But it's all Mrs. Hudson's. A bathrobe that barely reaches his calves – Sherlock's, shrunken in an experiment – the mouse he had worked his laptop with – also Sherlock's, borrowed and never returned. In the end, all John has clothing, some personal hygiene products, and his laptop. That is pretty much it, and all of it goes into a single duffle bag, the same it had been carried in when he had first arrived.

The second thing John does is getting rid of the gun. It's not his anymore – Sherlock used it too many times, shooting the wall, threatening Moriarty, threatening John, himself, the entire world. It doesn't feel right anymore to keep it. And, of course, once upon a time, he had used to save Sherlock with it. Having failed now… No. He can't keep it, so to theThamesit goes.

The third thing should've been finding flat, but it's _leaving_ the flat that had already been found. Mycroft's handiwork, the second place, and John can't accept anything from Sherlock's brother just yet because it reminds him too much of too many things, and he just _can't._ So, he goes to a bed-sit instead and searches for a new place – a new life, new existence, new John Watson that is no longer Doctor John Watson, Sherlock Holmes's colleague, companion, blogger. He finds it and it's poor, it's shabby, the roof leaks and there is a draft and the kitchen smells, but it's not Baker Street. So it's better.

The fourth thing is sitting. Sitting silent and still and trying not to feel like the world is moving around him faster than he can keep up. And yet it is – spinning in the space, around the sun in the celestial dance that Sherlock was so keen on deleting. And John feels it in his bones – how he's being left behind by everything, every single atom around him, until he can't bear it any longer.

The fifth thing is the very first thing he did, back what feels like ages ago. His leg twinges with familiar pain and he limps a little as he walks through the park, determined not to let his body fail him the way it threatens to – but it will, without Sherlock the leg will give in again, he knows it 't there this time, but he runs into someone else. Percy Phelps, a spot of personal shame, walks almost past him, not recognising him until the last moment. "Watson?" he asks with surprise and John winces because of a past that his experiences with Sherlock put even worse light thanAfghanistanhad.

The sixth thing is getting coffee with Percy – whom he used to bully back in senior school. They drink, they talk – Percy hasn't read his blog or the scandal in the papers, too busy with his work at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He's changed, nothing like the scrawny kid John had used to bully with his mates. Percy is smart, successful, maybe a bit nervous still, but regardless he's in every way superior to John. It opens John's eyes in a way that meeting withStamfordhadn't; "I'm attending to some lectures here about, part of the job to keep up with these sort of things," Percy says, sipping his tea. "Feels like I'm forever in school, really."

The seventh thing is thinking, contemplating and, eventually, planning. Because John knows that as it is his life is going nowhere – he's going to lose his job at the clinic the moment the intermitted tremor comes back, and it's going to, just like the limp had. After that, the pension would be all he had, and that wouldn't be enough. And besides, living the way he had wouldn't be enough, not anymore – he can't _settle_ down like that, not after Sherlock. It would kill him by inches, as surely as the fall had killed Sherlock, and John doesn't want that. Doesn't think that Sherlock would want that.

Eighth thing is several things. It starts with internet search and develops into taking online lessons, making personal research. He's gotten good at research, with Sherlock – he had been doing that all the time, searching this and that, confirming obscure facts. Internet is a tool in the way it hasn't ever been, and the more he researches, the better he gets at it. And he's good at studying too, he finds, and again lays the thanks at Sherlock's feet – Sherlock had forced him to be, with him at had always been either to be damn quick study or get left behind. So, John researches, he studies, he finds that he has somewhere along the way developed an eye for the obscure.

Ninth thing is meeting with Lestrade – who has gotten demoted, and is no longer the head of his division. Sherlock's scandal had hit him the worse, of course, and Lestrade looks worse and somehow better all at once – little more grey in his hair, but no shadows or bags beneath his eyes. Less time at the office, more to himself. "I'm thinking of retiring," he admits. John tells him where to shove that notion, and they drink a pint to an idiot genius.

Tenth thing is time, first weeks, then months, until year has gone by and he's at Sherlock's grave again, feeling like crying, like shouting, like kicking the tombstone over, like showering it with gold. God he hates the man – and still it's like tearing bits of shrapnel out of his shoulder to leave the place. But time does more than that, it takes the online lessons and upgrades them to actual classes, on and off. It kicks him out of London, eventually, when he loses his job like he had thought he would, and makes him find a place in Surrey instead. It also cements his plans, because the more of it goes by and he does nothing, the more he wants to do something. Time doesn't heal the wounds. It turns them into scars – and John learns best from scars.

Eleventh thing comes and goes without his notice – he can't even recall when he stopped dating, just that he's no longer even trying to pull. But then, with the limp, with the cane, with the personal burdens and monsters beneath his bed, he doesn't really want to either. Mary Morstan comes along, she is beautiful and kind and brilliant and so brave – and then she goes away again at some point, and only belatedly John muses if maybe she might've been _it_. He's oddly certain he's better off not knowing.

Twelfth thing is when classes turn into taking tests, getting qualifications. There isn't really that much to do, thanks to the fact that he already has a degree and a damn good one too – and the army history helps even more. He's in a way a little over qualified, lacking only the specialisation to the specific thing he wants, but he wants to cover his basics and more – he doesn't just want to be, he want to be the _very best_ he can be. Another thing Sherlock left with him, inability to settle for the second best.

Thirteenth thing is Mycroft, who without being asked to, without saying a thing, tampers with thing. So, when John enters the Initial Crime Scene Investigator Course, no one in the NPIA lifts as much an eyebrow. But it has been year and half, and Sherlock is a old scandal, mostly forgotten already, and John Watson could be anybody really – John Watson, Sherlock Holmes's blogger, had been man in a hat, in a black suit, more a bodyguard by the end than a companion, and John isn't that man anymore. He is instead determined man, a little overqualified, somewhat broken but not enough to hinder his work, immediately the favourite of the teachers, and eventually, after nine weeks, a graduate – an official scenes of crime officer.

Fourteenth thing is work – first in Surrey, which isn't all that interesting, mostly petty thefts, burglary, some domestic disputes and few, very very few, crimes of passion. But John is good, he is too good – his reports are eloquent but succinct, his evidence is clean and clear and neatly marked, he has eye for things most miss, and his reports more often than not solve the cases before the police investigators manage it. Two years after Sherlock's death,London calls John back home –not Met, of which John is secretly grateful because he doesn't want to work with familiar faces. Instead it's the Ministry of Defence that hires him, and if it's thanks to Mycroft, John doesn't ask.

Fifteenth thing is routine, as it settles on him. His life becomes all about crime scenes, and it's nothing like in Surrey – the MDP is different, it is wider spread, it covers whole of United kingdom, and beyond, and John is, suddenly, their best SOCO. He works in Ireland on Monday, Scotland in Tuesday, spends his Wednesday and Thursday in Cardiff and has barely a breather in London on Friday. And murder is the very least he does – his weekend is spent sorting out den of some wanna be terrorists, figuring out their goals and supplies and targets and connections. And on Monday, after barely enough time to sleep, it starts all over again.

Sixteenth is realising his limits, and his own abilities. He's not as good as Sherlock, never will be, he takes longer, he misses things at first, he gets things wrong. But unlike Sherlock, he has endless supply of evidence bags and bottles, of memory cards for his several cameras, and he always has a lab at his disposal, even if he has to share it with several other SOCOs, its much better equipped than Bart's. And with stubborn, steady work, John eventually gets _everything_.

Seventeenth thing is recovery, and that happens in stages. His hand stops shaking after some time, and he keeps forgetting his cane when he gets an idea about this or that bit of evidence, and has to rush into the laboratory just this moment to check it out. He calls on Lestrade more often and they go for a pint – Lestrade is a bit wide eyed about John's new job, but not surprised. John calls on the others too, even Molly and Mrs. Hudson even though she is like knife in his chest, with her big, understanding eyes. He gets a good flat and buys furniture for it, gets a telly with wide screen and upgrades from laptop to a desktop – and a new laptop, but that one's for work. At some point, he even manages to get a chair that is _his_ chair and a mug that is _his_ tea mug, and a bathrobe which isn't striped and is much longer than the one Sherlock ruined.

Eighteenth is setting his limits. The kitchen remains a kitchen, the living room a living room; John never brings his work to his home. Well, aside from the van and the tool box and the set of clothing he always has ready in case he gets called in the middle of the night, but that's only logical. He doesn't write a blog. He doubts he will ever again write a blog.

Nineteenth thing happens, when it's been three years. By that time John has been promoted to the Director of the MDP's offices of forensic science and suddenly Sherlock is there again, somehow, in John's _laboratory_. John doesn't punch him, though it's a near thing, doesn't hug him, though that's even nearer thing than the punching. No, instead, he chases Sherlock out of the laboratory because he's tampering with the evidence of the Adair case, and John's just gotten the damned thing sorted out.

The twentieth thing should've been moving back to Baker Street– where Mycroft had kept the flat to Sherlock's liking much to Mrs. Hudson's constant worry - but John won't. He can't. it took him three years and nineteen turns to get to where he is now, to doing what he finds he really likes to do, and he knows that if Sherlock would be there, if he would be where Sherlock is, he'd end up losing that all. Sherlock is almost worth it but not exactly, and John Watson isn't a blogger anymore.

He does call Sherlock in to consult _him_ on cases, but that's given and not really a _thing_ and at that point John's stopped counting. And he does punch Sherlock eventually, but Sherlock had it coming.

x

My way of comforting myself, thinking that in Sherlock's absence John becomes a bad-ass. Also recently read a story where John was working in the Met's forensic department, and it was awesome. (its by _stickstockstone_ on livejournal, google for "a completely different untitled police force john fic" and you should be able to find it, since so many are interested)

My apologies for shortness and grammar errors.


End file.
